Watch Dogs developer Ubisoft has announced that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game won't have "trimmed-down mechanics" when compared to the PS4 and Xbox One versions.

Here's the full quote from Ubisoft:

“We knew we would have next-gen hardware coming out before we ship. But we started off knowing we wanted to support PS3 and Xbox 360.

“On current-gen systems we may need to cut down the number of people on the street a little, but it’s still the same game. You don’t get the same sense of the crowd, but it allows us to scale certain bits and keep the same experience.”

Colin Graham added, “Players are going to know they aren’t getting a bad experience if they play Watch Dogs for the current gen, but the next gen is the real HD experience. You can zoom in another level. You can have better shaders, better simulation on the wind or the water, more particles, better atmospherics… Basically anything you can get with more computing power.”

“So have no fear if you plan on playing Watch Dogs on the PS3 or 360. There are no trimmed-down mechanics to make you feel as though you are missing out on the core experience.

“Watch Dogs is truly a next-gen game – not just in terms of offering cutting edge graphical performance on the next generation of consoles, but also when it comes to the gameplay, the immersion and the seamless online experience. And that’s due in large part to a great foundation: the Disrupt Engine.”

This sounds like great news, not everyone can afford a next-gen console right at launch, but would still like to play these awesome new games, and now we can, without worrying that we're missing out on too much.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Watch Dogs is scheduled to be released on November 19, 2013 in North America (November 21 in Australia, and November 22 in Europe) for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, with the PS4 and Xbox One versions scheduled for Q4 2013.